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Ensure moves to a new kind of plastic

Abbott Laboratories’ Ross Products Div. has announced what it calls "the biggest innovation in this business in 30 years."

Pw 14194 Ensure Bottle

The Columbus, OH, firm is putting its 8-oz Ensure adult nutritional products in a multilayer extrusion-blown barrier bottle with a threaded, reclosable closure. The new package replaces a thermoformed plastic barrier can plus double-seamed steel end.

Like its predecessor, the filled and capped bottle is sent through a retort to render the product inside shelf stable at ambient temperatures for about one year. The six-layer, 24-g bottle has what Mike Wallace, director of process and package development, describes as a "polypropylene/EVOH structure." The proprietary bottle is blown by Owens-Illinois on a quad-parison wheel system in a plant not far from the Alta Vista, VA, plant where Ross Products fills the container.

Fast new line

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